With the continued growth in USMS membership, I would submit that it's time to eliminate the regional teams at Nationals. Case in point: NCMS sent a "team" of 123 swimmers to Atlanta, enough to enter A, B, C, and D relays in many events (e.g. the mens 35+ 200 free relay in which our club team placed 13th behind eight regional teams). It's been argued that the formation of regional teams allows more swimmers to participate in relays, yet local clubs from North Carolina sent as many as thirty or more athletes and could have entered relays on their own as our club (with eight swimmers) did. Swim with the guys you actually train with.
HAVING SAID THAT, who really cares about masters zone, association or national team championships? In whatever manner they are constructed, they are just collections of "whoever could make it to the meet". I'm sure in Atlanta, Walnut Creek didn't have all of their best swimmers there. Nor TOC, nor even OREG.
Sure there are teams that train together, and their swimmers probably have stronger bonds than do swimmers from regional teams.
I, for one, would gladly pimp myself out to swim on a great WR or NR relay team. Who cares if I have to wear a different cap? Ultimately, I will still be looking at my individual events first. And I will still watch the swims of old and new friends, regardless of who they represent.
If this is such an issue, why not simply exclude the relay points from the total scoring? And then let any group of four swimmers get together for relays... regardless of where they train, or who they represented in individual events.
I'm going to agree with Jim on these points.
I don't really care about scoring at Nationals much. I confess I have no idea who won and didn't listen to the announcement at the end of the meet. I do feel slightly put off by the fact that my little local relays got whomped by the regional teams. But I don't have much desire to swim on a big regional relay team with people I don't know. I enjoy relays. But I like swimming them with either people on my small local team or people I know and like (old friends or new, near or far). If I had to hold out for people I actually "train regularly" with, I would never swim relays since I train mostly solo.
HAVING SAID THAT, who really cares about masters zone, association or national team championships? In whatever manner they are constructed, they are just collections of "whoever could make it to the meet". I'm sure in Atlanta, Walnut Creek didn't have all of their best swimmers there. Nor TOC, nor even OREG.
Sure there are teams that train together, and their swimmers probably have stronger bonds than do swimmers from regional teams.
I, for one, would gladly pimp myself out to swim on a great WR or NR relay team. Who cares if I have to wear a different cap? Ultimately, I will still be looking at my individual events first. And I will still watch the swims of old and new friends, regardless of who they represent.
If this is such an issue, why not simply exclude the relay points from the total scoring? And then let any group of four swimmers get together for relays... regardless of where they train, or who they represented in individual events.
I'm going to agree with Jim on these points.
I don't really care about scoring at Nationals much. I confess I have no idea who won and didn't listen to the announcement at the end of the meet. I do feel slightly put off by the fact that my little local relays got whomped by the regional teams. But I don't have much desire to swim on a big regional relay team with people I don't know. I enjoy relays. But I like swimming them with either people on my small local team or people I know and like (old friends or new, near or far). If I had to hold out for people I actually "train regularly" with, I would never swim relays since I train mostly solo.
